AUKUS: Never easy to get EU trade deal: Scott Morrison

Scott Morrison says he’s confident trade negotiations with the EU will continue, despite fears France would seek to scuttle the deal.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison dismissed the idea the government should have been more open with France about its plan to obtain nuclear submarines from the US as part of a new security pact with the US and UK, as he arrived in the US for a week of meetings with world leaders including President Joe Biden.

Mr Morrison said he was confident the negotiations with the EU over a free-trade deal would continue, despite fears France would seek to scuttle the potential deal, furious at the cancellation last week by Australia of a 2016 submarine contract.

“The Foreign Affairs Chief for the European Commission said you don’t mix apples and pears,” the Prime Minister said.

“These issues will be worked through in the weeks and months ahead. It’s not an easy thing to do to get agreement with the EU on trade,” he added, pointing out Canada hadn’t yet secured a deal either.

Mr Morrison touched down in New York at around 6pm Monday evening ahead of meeting with Joe Biden and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken tomorrow, and the leaders of India and Japan, and the UK Prime Minister in Washington later in the week.

“It’s naive to think a decision of this nature was not going to cause disappointment to the French .. [but] it was not possible for us to be able to discuss issues with other countries at that time,” Mr Morrison said.

“It had to be a decision taken in a very secure environment; to suggest this decision could have been taken without causing this disappointment would be very naive,” he added.

Scott Morrison is greeted on the tarmac in New York. Picture: Adam Taylor

France recalled its ambassadors from the US and Australia last week, furious at cancellation of the submarine contract and its exclusion from the new Aukus security pact.

“We chose not to go through a gate in a contract, the contract was set up that way and we chose not to go through, because we believed to do so was not in Australia’s interests,” the prime minister said.

Mr Morrison will meet the Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and the president of the European Commission in New York before the first in-person meeting of Quad leaders in Washington, where he said he hoped to discuss climate change, vaccines, supply chain and critical technology.

“I know it sounds like a big agenda and it is because we’re living in a world that’s changing rapidly. We need to change with it,” Mr Morrison said.

“The first responsibly of any prime minister, or any leader of any country is their national security and to always put national interest first, doing what’s best for own people,” he told reporters at the airport. “We have great friends and partners and allies all around the world,” he added.

The Prime Minister said he was looking forward to forging new defence and commercial relationships with European countries, including Germany and Austria.

Separately, President Biden met with the secretary-general of the United Nations on Monday evening, ahead of his first speech as President to the United Nations general assembly tomorrow.

The speech comes against a backdrop of tension with France, China, controversy of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the humiliation of having accidentally killed 10 Afghans in a botched drone strike.

“It’s an important and consequential week for President Biden and his leadership on the world stage in driving forward some critical priorities for America’s national security and for the broader peace and prosperity of the world,” a senior US official said.

On the flight over Scott Morrison also assured the Indonesian President Australia would not obtain nuclear weapons as part of a new security pact with the US and the UK that will see the nation acquire nuclear-powered submarines.

In a “warm” phone call with Joko Widodo, Mr Morrison said Australia “would maintain all of our obligations” under nuclear non-proliferation treaties and the new AUKUS security partnership “would contribute to peace and stability and a strategic balance in the region”, a spokesman said.